Not Gwyneth Paltrow's head.
The correct answer, was nothing.
Normally, I am pretty unprepared for Christmas, yet this year I found something for my wife that I think she will like and it is only bloody October. It is something that she might want to use earlier though, so perhaps I will give it to her prior. Well, would have given it to her prior...
Because despite getting the delivery notice that it was waiting at a pick-up point, when I opened the door using the app, the box was empty. This is the first time it has happened, but it is something I have always been concerned about with all of the apps and bluetooth and whatever else they use to facilitate the process. This particular box is also outside a shopping centre. But my biggest concern isn't about it being stolen, it is about me not being believed that it was stolen, or missing at all. Though, I guess they have a camera set up to view the boxes anyway.
For this particular thing though, I was more worried about not getting it, because I bought it during a sale and got it for a very good price. I have been looking for one that was "cheap enough" to warrant buying it, because it isn't a necessary item for my wife or us at all, and it is pretty useless. But, I think my wife will appreciate it still. I can't say what it is now, just in case on the off chance my wife decides to read this post - though I don't think she reads many of them.
So, in order to get this sorted out, I had to make a charged phone call to the company who has lost the order, wait on hold, and then give all the details for identity and then the parcel and then the "get back to you" nonsense. This was yesterday. Today, after still not hearing anything back, I went through the process again, getting charged for the call while I waited to talk to someone, go through the identification process again and then, find out that it will be delivered sometime this week.
That is a relief.
But, while more convenient in so many ways, it definitely pushes into my dislike for the growing disconnection from human contact. While I agree that a lot of the jobs we do in the supply chain are pretty much busywork in terms of human advancement, the value of people working together and interacting throughout the supply chain has human value, because talking with people directly is a big part of our wellbeing matrix. This has been tested over and over with people, and even decades ago there were studies about the elderly going into supermarkets just to talk for a minute to the cashier.
Now with all of the apps, people hardly have to talk to anyone outside their household, and their household is less likely to have anyone in it too. More people are living alone than ever before, with the majority of their interaction with the outside world, being through a screen. Food is ordered through an app, delivered by a robot at times, or someone with a massive bag on their back who you aren't "meant" to talk to, and eaten in front of a screen. People order their groceries online and have them delivered or picked up from a box, like their post. And everyone is behind a screen and earbuds on the bus, at the gym, or in the park.
Everyone is faceless.
I get that a lot of people get anxious around others, but would they have anxiety if they had normal exposure? Some yes, but I suspect far fewer. Instead, we are conditioning people into having social disorders by creating environments that allow and even encourage them to avoid social interactions. Rather than getting better at dealing with people, they can get better at avoiding people altogether, and this is of course going to impact on society as a whole, in many diverse and highly impactful ways - from loneliness to violent crime.
We are affected.
Or is it, infected?
In August, Finland introduced a ban of smartphone usage by kids at school during school times and in locations near schools, data usage has dropped by around twenty percent and in some areas, as much as seventy percent. That is an enormous drop-off even at the 20 percent range, but the large discrepancies can be explained that some schools already had stricter rules around phone usage prior to the law change and when the comparison testing was done. But, what will really be interesting with it in the future is if it has an effect on children's behaviour in the schools. Will they interact more, will they concentrate more, will they build better social circles, will they be as anxious or lonely? Or will they get even worse, as they have nothing "fun" to occupy their attention.
From the moment we are conceived, we start developing, and after birth our brains go through a rapid growth period that essentially sets a lot of our wiring for the future and makes it very hard to affect later. Out of convenience, many parents sat their kids down in front of televisions to babysit, but with the advent of mobile screens, the babysitter screen is ever-present and is used to entertain a child, when they would have earlier been interacting with the world, with their parents, with their siblings. From very young ages, children are getting conditioned to be antisocial, and it becomes part of their personality.
My grandad used to call the TV the "idiot box" because even then in the 80s, it was clear that the people who spent a lot of time consuming that content, were becoming idiots. Less skilled, less creative, less interactive, less social. Nowadays, people are fighting for their right to be idiots, where they defend their overconsumption behaviours in everything, from watching too much, to eating too much, to being too emotionally reactive. It is like people want to be victims of their world, without recognising that they are victimizing themselves.
We are the perpetrators of our own destruction.
Technological convenience is a challenge though, because there is value in having some automation and ease of use in various areas. However, the problem arises when that convenience starts to impact on our abilities to cope in the world, lowering our wellbeing in the process. To build the skills that support wellbeing at the individual and the societal level, we need to develop interactive skills, where humans engage well with humans, yet we are going in the opposite direction.
I feel it in me too.
I am pretty good socially, but I have also become worse at it as I have engaged more with screens, streaming content and interacted with people doing the same. As a whole, I would still be considered comparatively good in social situations, but that is like comparing two ill people to each other - they are both still ill. Personally, I am going to spend more time getting more "personal" and working with intention on improving my social abilities. There is no direct payoff to do so, other than I hope it will impact on my own wellbeing, and that of the people I interact with. There is likely to other values to be found through social engagement too, but that isn't the point.
I don't want to live a disconnected life, surrounded by people who have social anxiety and are unable to hold a conversation that makes them uncomfortable. I want to have a rich social environment, where people are able to discuss and interact and have conversations that matter, rather than avoiding them because it is more convenient.
It is up to each of us.
No one need do anything different than they are now. They can do exactly what they want to do, what they are conditioned to do. But, when the box is empty, whose problem is it?
Taraz
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